Kern wrote: So while felde striked first, striking back will escalate things.

Yeah, it is easy to understand why Ariel and company chose the path they did, given both their training and the overall situation, I can't help but feel it would have been better to try to get back in contact with Chelian leaders and see if any of them would be sympathetic to Machtike.

Hah! Fat chance!

Sarghress - those that are hunting themSharen - pawns of SnadhyaNal'sarkoth - pawns of SnadhyaBeldrobbaen - too weak and insecure to take sidesJaal - pawns of SnadhyaSullisin - Ashwaren's paranoia has created a weak powerbase even if Ashwaren herself is with ArielDutan'vir - too small and weak to take sidesIllhardo - diehard allies of Sharen therefore pawns of SnadhyaVloz - ded klan

That leaves Kyorls who certainly have a strong army and who may feel sympathetic to Machike but with every other clan wanting to stay out of it or worse, position themselves against Ariel, I don't think even Anahid would take a position where they'd likely have to fight at least 5 clans at once and outnumbered manpower wise.

Anahid would probably want to avoid a fight on principle, but yes, especially one against all of Chel.

But I think you are too quick to dismiss many as pawns of Snadya. Zala, for example, is definitely not happy with Snad looking over her soldier and I am sure she would be thrilled to have a political weapon to wield against Snad and her allies. Similarly, the Beld and Dutanvir might not have a lot of military support at the moment, but their votes at the council meeting could do a lot to help Ariel's group recover and be safe from further attacks.

After all, don't forget that this alliance was not Snad's endgame. She wanted to be an absolute empress - that she has to manipulate things and work through a council of clans is a bit of a failure on her part.

Moric wrote:

sunhawk wrote:I wonder if these Jaal bio golems are like the previous one we saw. Where the head can just pop right off as a separate unit.

I would think so. That said, what's inside the golem bodies?

Golem machinery I would imagine.

Marcellogo wrote:Nothing in Jaal's golems body, the head is THE living part, giving mana to move the rest.

Parallelism between the current engagement and chapter 0 is well found and quite striking.We have moved full round and back to square one.

In that case, you'ld thing think the head units would have helmets or something. As it is, they seem like obvious targets.

I can see what you mean, hopefully this battle ends better for the attacker.

Mizu wrote:That guy should consider a profession as a ninja, yanking someone out of the middle of a pitched battle is pretty impressive.

Junglefowl26 wrote:But I think you are too quick to dismiss many as pawns of Snadya. Zala, for example, is definitely not happy with Snad looking over her soldier and I am sure she would be thrilled to have a political weapon to wield against Snad and her allies. Similarly, the Beld and Dutanvir might not have a lot of military support at the moment, but their votes at the council meeting could do a lot to help Ariel's group recover and be safe from further attacks.

You forget that Zala knows that Snadhya could poison her again or assassinate her at any moment Zala's existence becomes inconvenient. Especially now that Zala had to let Snad's people make home in her alliance and take important positions in it.I'd say Zala could be as paranoid as Ashwaren at this point.